Collaboration and Innovation, Key to Support Inclusive Economy Growth

MACROECONOMICS - ​JAKARTA. Collaboration and innovation is a common thread of various Business Twenty (B20) forums. This is an important part of G20 activities in 2022. That matters are also going to become a main key for formulating appropriate policies to establish a conducive business climate and realizing an inclusive economy growth.

Chairman of Commission VI of the House of Representatives, Faisol Riza, supported the B20 forums as a place to accommodate the business world aspiration in order to appear a significant impact on the economy. “The government has to facilitate a chance for our entrepreneurs and it should take a role in the meeting,” he said.

Faisol disclosed, the February and March 2022 meeting with many task forces of B20, many parties that are involved in have to take a role in the G20 moment in this year.

“I hope Indonesia’s enable to take advantages for this moment, mainly for raising the trading agreement between us with the G20 countries and others. Mainly, it si for developing our trading volume as well as expanding our export surplus,” he clarified.

Faisol also expected, the B20 and G20 moment is enable to realize a pentahelix or the involvement of multi-stakeholder as a part of consideration in arranging a policy that is relevant with cooperation. Pentahelix is a collaboration element that is capable to unite many parties, namely academics, business actors, community, government, and media.

Separately, the Task Force “Trade & Investment” of B20 Chairman, Arif Hidayat, told, the business world has implemented the collaborative and innovative spirit in helping the Small Middle Enterpreneurs (SMEs) to rise immediately and develop. This is because SMEs are part of the Indonesian economy backbone and are very well realized by the private sector.

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“Some co-chairs have talked their key success, for example Unilever or Philip Morris, whereas they have nurtured hundred thousands SMEs, including women. Their key success is the empowerment of SMEs that are completed by corporation,” Arief clarified as quoted when attended a virtual discussion of Ngobrol Seru: Indonesian trading and investment in the framework of B20 and G20 Indonesia 2022.

Philip Morris International through its subsidiary, PT HM Sampoerna Tbk, has actively developed the Indonesian SMEs for the latest 15 years through two programs, namely Sampoerna Entrepreneurship Training Center (SETC) that has given a training to more than 56,000 participants and Sampoerna Retail Community (SRC) that owns members of more than 160,000 retail shops.

While Unilever has actively campaigned #UnileverUntukIndonesia for seeking a real support for 147.000 sellers of retail shops so that they still do trading for the covid-19 pandemic.

Arif mentioned, Indonesia has implemented positive collaboration since a few years ago. The Indonesia momentum as the Presidency of G20 and B20 needs to be optimized to tell many key success, so that Indonesia becomes superior and is enable to be a reference in accelerating recovery after the pandemic.

“Principally, we want to try in creating awareness and sharing many key examples that have been implemented by business actors in order to appear a positive impact wider,” he added.

The SMEs empowerment is one of the four main programs of the B20 trade & investment task force as a derivative of the three pillars of the G20 presidency. At the third point of the four programs are enclosed that it is needed the strengthen of the inclusive global support link, including SMEs empowerment and Woman Entrepreneurs.

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According to Arif, the corporation role is very needed in the framework to strengthen supply link to SMEs so that it creates a consistent sustainability in the long period. It is also going to become a part of the B20 recommendation that are in charge of summarizing input and aspirations from all stakeholders, especially from business actors, at the culmination of the event (Summit) of the Indonesian Presidency for B20 and G20 in Bali in November 2022.

“We’ll try to reach a consensus and produce proposals which are named a policy recommendation paper,” Arif said.

B20 seeks to produce legacy projects that own a significant impact, implementation, and also unique to the Indonesian Presidency. “So, for the legacy of this task force, what we want to promote is the economic inclusivity framework,” he added.